Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Republican Victory ’06 campaign established 10 call centers in Los Angeles County this election season – 10 more than any of the three previous Republican candidates for governor.

In the past, call centers have been the responsibility of local Republican clubs and central committees. But an unprecedented, centralized effort by the California Republican Party has led to a proliferation of such centers throughout the state.

Nowhere has the impact of the party’s efforts been more pronounced than in Los Angeles County, long considered politically hostile terrain for Republicans, and the only major county where California Treasurer Phil Angelides still leads the governor – barely.

Only two GOP gubernatorial candidates have carried the county in the past 30 years, according to the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s records – Pete Wilson in 1994 and George Deukmejian in 1986.

“It is extremely rare,” said Tony Quinn, editor of the California Target Book, which handicaps races across the state. “It is really going to depend on turnout, whether the Democrats and the unions are able to turnout their traditional voters.”

That traditional vote, Quinn added, appears “dispirited and disinterested,” a factor that could affect other races on Tuesday’s ballot.

Bruce Cain, director of the University of California Washington Center, said a big Schwarzenegger win Tuesday could have national repercussions and herald a new era for moderate Republicans. A win in L.A. County would only heighten the effect.

“I think there is a real thirst for people to work across the party lines,” Cain said. “What is being rewarded here is moderation and compromise.”

The governor’s own campaign literature plays on this sentiment. One mailer shows Schwarzenegger signing a school bill with two of the most powerful Democrats in the state, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nu ez and Los Angles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, standing behind him.

But symbolism alone is not enough. Turnout depends on a strong get-out-the-vote effort.

In Pasadena, the phones at the Victory ’06 headquarters are humming. The center, long operated by the Pasadena Republican Club, has tripled its original eight to 10 phone lines, thanks to the influx of resources from the state party.

“We have enough to put in 30 phones, but the equipment exceeds the amount of space that we have,” said Elaine Klock, chairman of the Pasadena Victory ’06 operation on North Altadena Drive.

New technology has allowed the party to expand the amount of phone bank lines at each center, Barajas said. Victory ’06 is using Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, to equip its call centers.

“We have 48 VOIP centers throughout the state, which allows us to place up to 40 phone lines at each of our centers,” said Hector M. Barajas, press secretary for the California Republican Party. “In the past, we have had maybe six or eight phone lines.”

In all, the party has unleashed an army of 73,000 volunteers to man the centers, and they are averaging 250,000 calls a week, Barajas said.

The way the volunteers choose who to call has also changed dramatically. The statewide Victory ’06 campaign is modeled after a successful strategy used by the Republicans in the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, said Amanda Fulkerson, a spokeswoman for the governor’s campaign.

It was in 2004 that the GOP refined its now vaunted strategy of micro-targeting, a technique in which consultants use the abundance of information available in today’s society to choose which voters might be most amenable to the party’s message.

Barajas said everything from a person’s age, their spending habits, even the magazines they subscribe to are available to Republican strategists. This data is then used to compile lists of potential supporters to call.

Barajas would only say that the party’s phone banking and micro-targeting efforts were costing “tens of millions of dollars.” Campaign finance records show the California Republican Party has spent upwards of $40 million this election cycle, more than half of that on television and radio ads.

About half a million dollars has gone to installation of phone lines, networks and micro-targeting, according to documents filed with the California Secretary of State.

Whether the extra effort will pay off in L.A. County remains to be seen. Schwarzenegger is ahead in the polls nearly everywhere except Los Angeles, where Angelides leads by a slim 40 percent to 38 percent, according to a Public Policy Institute poll released last week.

“There is a good chance for the governor to take the county and that the county will provide a good amount of support for other statewide Republican candidates,” said Barajas, whose party is so confident it has opened a call center in the liberal bastion of San Francisco for the first time in 18 years.

Schwarzenegger leads Angelides in the Bay Area by six percentage points, according to the PPIC poll.

Despite Angelides’ narrow lead in Los Angeles, the GOP still faces an entrenched Democratic campaign infrastructure and a huge registration deficit in the county. There are nearly 900,000 more registered Democrats than there are Republicans in L.A. County, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

The Democrats have eight field offices in L.A. County alone, said Jeff Mellman, press secretary for the California Democratic Party.

“We don’t just have phone banks there, but we send precinct walkers out of our field offices,” Mellman said, adding that the party will send out 70,000 volunteers to knock on 260,000 doors statewide this weekend – the bulk in L.A. County.